Chapter 541 Obstacles to Acquisition

In addition, in Barron's previous life, after Thomson Group acquired Reuters Group, Thomson Group President and CEO Richard Harrington retired, and current Reuters Group CEO Tom Grosser served as Tom Sen - CEO of Reuters Group.

It is obvious that in this merger competition between SEM Group and Thomson Group for Reuters Group, Reuters Group CEO Tom Grosser will be more inclined to choose Thomson Group from his own perspective.

After all, if Thomson Group completes the acquisition, Tom Grosser will become the head of a group with a market share exceeding Bloomberg and ranking first in the industry.

As for SEM Group, although it will guarantee the independence of Reuters Group, the temptation is naturally not as good as being acquired by Thomson Group.

For this reason, Barron not only used his influence to launch an antitrust investigation by the British Competition and Markets Authority into the Thomson Group's acquisition, but also had a phone call with Michael Bloomberg.

I met Bloomberg when Barron accompanied Brown on his last visit to the United States. On the streets of New York, he ate hot dogs with Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York...

Bloomberg also has an identity as the boss of Bloomberg.

If Thomson Group completes its merger with Reuters Group, their market share will surpass Bloomberg and become a powerful competitor of Bloomberg.

In contrast, Bloomberg naturally prefers SEM Group to acquire Reuters Group.

Therefore, with the tacit understanding between the two, Bloomberg also used his influence, and the relevant antitrust agencies in the United States investigated the Thomson Group's acquisition.

In the face of investigations by the antitrust agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States, it is conceivable that the Thomson Group's acquisition will definitely be hindered - after all, Thomson is a Canadian company and there is no stronger competitor in the original time and space. In the end, after making many compromises, the acquisition of Reuters Group was completed, but now, it is not that easy.

“If Reuters Group is acquired by Thomson, they will inevitably reduce the number of employees in the UK, lay off a large number of personnel, and may even move their headquarters to Canada. This is unacceptable to the UK... …”

This is how the public relations team funded by Barron's family office conducted public relations with the British government related to the review of the acquisition, striving to veto the acquisition from the relevant departments.

Although what they said has not happened yet, it is not false. In Barron's previous life, Thomson did this after acquiring the Reuters Group.

For example, in 2008, the year the Thomson-Reuters merger was completed, they consolidated their offices in London from the original 24 to 10, and laid off 1,500 people globally, most of which were in British staff.

Later, they even moved their headquarters out of England, sold the former Reuters Group headquarters building in Canary Wharf, and finally delisted from the London Stock Exchange...

Of course, this is also related to the fact that after the merger, they happened to encounter the global economic recession caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, but it also shows that after the Thomson Group acquired Reuters, as the British shareholders held a very small proportion of the shares in the new group, They have shifted their focus away from England.

The public relations team currently funded by Barron's family office is very large, including the functions of some lobbying groups in the United States. There are hundreds of people in this team, a large number of whom have served in the British government, and some may also join in the future. Served in the British Government.

The public relations focus of this public relations team is directed at the core group of civil servants in the UK - if you have watched the British dramas "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" series, I am afraid that you can also feel the operation of the British government from them. Some logic.

It can be said that the British government can be divided into two types: political affairs officers and administrative officers. For example, political affairs officers are mainly determined by political parties-that is, the political affairs officers are appointed by the party that wins the election. Many of these political affairs officers may have been appointed before. They are all so-called "political stars". They don't have much experience in the specific affairs of various departments, so they need the help of the affairs officers who have been working here all year round.

Affairs officers have an independent set of promotion rules. No matter which party comes to power, it will not have much influence on them. It can be said that they are the "natives" rooted in various departments in England, even if they appoint officials through the "new government". The whims and final formulation of policy provisions all need to be made by the administrative officers. It can be said that if they unite to fight against the administrative officers, the other party may not be able to do anything.

Barron's public relations team includes many people with many years of experience as service officers. They know very well how to deal with the service officers who are actually responsible for various policies and provisions, and can also convey Barron's demands in a friendly manner. other side.

It is no exaggeration to say that every department of the British government has a corresponding team in Barron's public relations team to carry out the work...

Most of the funds for the entire public relations team come from accounts such as "consulting fees" or "public relations fees" from various companies under Barron's name, such as United Energy Group, O2 Telecom, SEM Group, Argos Retail Group, etc. Etc., these groups will have this part of the purposeful expenditure to support this public relations team.

Well, the most obvious result of Thomson Group's acquisition of Reuters Group is that this acquisition was quickly subject to severe review by relevant British agencies - in the name of preventing monopoly and unfair competition.

After all, in terms of national interests, they cannot accept that this acquisition will cause a well-known large company such as Reuters Group to leave the UK and lay off employees massively.

It would be fine if there were no other competitors. Now that Britain’s own SEM Group is competing, the Thomson Group needs to be clearly arranged...

And in itself, in terms of the purchase price alone, the plan proposed by SEM Group is not inferior.

SEM Group also proposed to acquire Reuters Group in the form of cash and stock. What is interesting is that before Thomson officially announced the acquisition conditions of Reuters Group, SEM Group already held 30% of Reuters Group. stock.

Therefore, because Reuters Group was affected by the high-priced bids of Thomson Group and SEM Group, their stock prices rose sharply...

The SEM Group, which holds more than 30% of the shares of the Reuters Group, has also seen its share price rise. This has resulted in the SEM Group’s acquisition price for the Reuters Group being even higher than Tom’s according to the stock price corresponding to the SEM Group’s acquisition plan. Mori Group’s price of £8.6 billion...

Due to the development of performance and the victory in the previous competition for Premier League broadcast rights, it is expected to bring huge growth in paid users to the ITV sports channel owned by SEM Group. Therefore, the share price of SEM Group at this time has exceeded 40 pounds. Its market value also exceeds 8.5 billion pounds.

But frankly speaking, the market value of SEM Group is less than that of Thomson Group, and is even a little lower than their acquisition bid for Reuters Group.

But this time SEM Group’s acquisition of Reuters Group is also mainly cash, plus some stock exchanges. Therefore, if the acquisition is completed, it will still be able to occupy the status of the major shareholder of the merged company in the end.